Theophrastus
（
*Qeo/frastos), the Greek philosopher, was a native of Eresus in Lesbos. (
Strabo xiii. p.618;
D. L. 5.36, &c.)
Before he left his native city the bent of his mind was directed towards philosophy by Leucippus or Alcippus, a man of whom we know nothing further. Leaving Eresus, he betook himself to Athens, where he attached himself at first to Plato, but afterwards to Aristotle. (Diog. Laert.
l.c.) The story that the latter changed the name of this, his favourite pupil, from Tyrtamus to Theophrastus (for the purpose, as is stated, of avoiding the cacophony, and of indicating the fluent and graceful address of the young man; Strabo,
l.c. ; D. L. 5.38, ib. Menag.), is scarcely credible. Nor can we place more reliance on the accounts that this change of name took place at a later period. (He is already called Theophrastus in Aristotle's will; see
D. L. 5.12, &c.)
The authorities who would lead us to suppose this express themselves very indistinctly. (Cic.
Orat. 19; Siquidem et Theophrastus divintate loquendi nomen invenit ; Quintil.
Inst. Orat. 11.1,
in Theophrasto tam est eloquendi nitor ille divinus ut ex eo nomen quoque traxisse dieatur.) It is much more likely that the proper name itself, which occurs elsewhere (Steph.
Thesaur. Ling. Graec. ed. nov. Paris), suggested attempts to connect it with the eloquence which so eminently distinguished the Eresian. To prove the love of Aristotle for Theophrastus we do not need to betake ourselves to the above story, or to the doubtful expression of the former with respect to the latter, that " he needed the rein, not the spur," an expression which Plato is also said to have made use of with respect to Aristotle (
D. L. 5.39, ib. Menag.); it is proved in a much more indubitable manner by the will of the Stagirite, and by the confidence which led him. when removing to Chalcis, to designate Theophrastus as his successor in the presidency of the Lyceum
D. L. 5.36; comp. A. Gell.
Noct. Att. 13.5).
It is not unlikely, moreover, that Theophrastus had been the disciple of Aristotle during the residence of the latter in Stageira, while engaged in the education of
Alexander : at all events Theophrastus, in his will, mentions an estate that he possessed at Stageira (
D. L. 5.52), and was on terms of the most intimate friendship with Callisthenes, the fellow-pupil of
Alexander (
D. L. 5.44, ib. Menag.). Two thousand disciples are said to have gathered round Theophrastus, and among them such men as the comic poet Menander. (
D. L. 5.37,
36.) Highly esteemed by the kings Philippus, Cassander, and Ptolemaeus, he was not the less the object of the regard of the Athenian people, as was decisively shown when Agonis ventured to bring an impeachment against him, on the ground of impiety (
l.100.37 ; comp. Aelian,
Ael. VH 4.19). Nevertheless, when, according to the law of Sophocles (Ol. 118. 3), the philosophers were banished from Athens, Theophrastus also left the city, until Philo, a disciple of Aristotle, in the very next year. brought Sophocles to punishment, and procured the repeal of the law. (
D. L. 5.38, ib. Menag.; comp. C. G. Zumpt,
Ueber den Besland der philosophischen Schulen in Athen, &c., Berlin, 1843, p. 17.) Whether Theophrastus succeeded Aristotle without opposition, and also came into possession of the house and garden where the former taught in the Lyceum (not far from the present royal palace in Athens), is uncertain.
In the will of Aristotle no express directions were left on this point. Still there is nothing at variance therewith in the statement that Theophrastus, after the death of Aristotle, with the assistance of Demetrius Phalereus, obtained a garden of his own. (The words of Diogenes Laertius, 5.39, are very obscure; the
καὶ in the words
λέγεται δ᾽ αὐτὸν καὶ κῆπον σχεῖν μετὰ τὴν Ἀριστοτέλους τελευτήν,
Δηυητριου τοῦ Φαληρέως .... τοῦτο συμπράξαντος, appears rather to refer to a previous possession than to exclude it.)
That the executor of the will of Aristotle instituted a sale of the estate, respecting which no directions had been left in the will, and that Demetrius interposed, in order to secure a permanent possession for the head of the school, we cannot, with Zumpt (
l.c. p. 8), conclude from the above words.
The garden, provided with houses, colonnades, walks, &c., whether it was exclusively the private property of Theophrastus, or was, at least, inherited in part by him from Aristotle, is made over by the former in his will to Strato and his other friends, provided they had a mind to philosophize together, as a common and inalienable possession (
D. L. 5.51, &c.).
A similar testamentary disposition of the property was made by Strato and Lycon, the succeeding heads of the school. (
D. L. 5.61, &c., 70.)
Theophrastus reached an advanced age; whether that of eighty-five years (
D. L. 5.40) or more (Hieronymus,
Epist. ad Nepotian. even speaks of 107 years), we leave undecided.
But the statement contained in the letter to Polycles, prefixed to his
Characteres, according to which this book was composed in the ninety-ninth year of the author, although Tzetzes (
Chil. 9.941) already read it so, may very well rest on a clerical error (comp. Casaubon.
ad Theophr. Charact. Proleg. p. 85); and if Theophrastus was the head of the school for thirty-five years (
D. L. 5.36,
58), he would, even had he only reached his hundredth year, have been older than Aristotle. If he reached the age of eighty-seven, he was ten years younger, and was born Ol. 101. 3. Theophrastus is said to have closed his life. which was devoted to restless activity (
D. L. 5.36; comp. Suid.), with the complaint respecting the short duration of human existence, that it ended just when the insight into its problems was beginning. (This complaint, expressed in different forms, we read in Cicero, Tusc. 3.28; Hieron.
l.c. ; D. L. 5.41.)
The whole people took part in his funeral obsequies. (Diog. Laert.
l.c.) His faithful affection for Aristotle, which he had transferred to Nicomachus, the son of the latter and his own disciple, expresses itself in the directions contained in his will respecting the preparation and preservation of the states or busts of the Stagirite and his son (
D. L. 5.51,
52); and still more in the way in which he exerted himself to carry out the philosophical endeavours of his teacher. to throw light upon the difficulties contained in his books, to fill up the gaps in them. and, with respect to individual dogmas, to amend them.
II. Works
The preceding statement finds its confirmation in the list of the writings of the Eresian given us, though with his usual haste, by Diogenes Laertius, but probably borrowed from authorities like Hermippus and Andronicus (Schol. at the end of the
Metaphysics of Theophrastus), and the statements respecting them contained in other writers, which Menage has already, at least in part, collected in his notes. Thus Theophrastus, like Aristotle, had composed a first and second
Analytic (
D. L. 5.42, ib. Menag.), and, at least in the case of the former, had connected his treatise with that of his great predecessor, in the manner indicated above (see below, section III.).
He had also written books on
Topics (
D. L. 5.42,
45,
50), and on the confutation of fallacies (ib. 42, 45); the former again, at all events, with a careful regard to the
Topica of Aristotle.
The work of Theophrastus
On Affirmation and Denial (
περὶ καταφάσεως καὶ ἀποφάσεως,
D. L. 5.44) seems to have corresponded to that of Aristotle
On Judgment (
περὶ ἑρμηνείας). To the books of Aristotle on the
Principles of Natural Philosophy (
Physica Auscultatio), on Heaven, and on Meteorological Phenomena, Theophrastus had had regard in corresponding works. (
D. L. 5.42,
50. 47.) Further, he had written on the Warm and the Cold (
D. L. 5.44, ib. Menag.), on Water. Fire (
D. L. 5.45), the Sea (
ib.), on Coagulation and Melting (
περι πήξεως καὶ τήξεως,) on various phenomena of organic and spiritual life (
D. L. 5.45, ib. Menag., 43, 46, 49, 43, 44) ; on the Soul and Sensuous Perception (ib. 4(6), not without regard to the corresponding works of Aristotle, as may at least in part be demonstrated.
In like manner we find mention of monographies of Theophrastus on the older Greek physiologians Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Archelaus (
D. L. 5.42,
43), Diogenes of Apollonia, Democritus (ib. 43), which were not unfrequently made use of by Simplicius; and also on Xenocrates (ib. 47), against the Academics (49), and a sketch of the political doctrine of Plato (ib. 43), which shows that the Eresian followed his master likewise in the critico-historical department of inquiry.
That he also included general history within the circle of his scientific investigation, we see from the quotations in Plutarch's lives of Lycurgus, Solon, Aristides, Pericles, Nicias, Alcibiades, Lysander, Agesilaus, and Demosthenes, which were probably borrowed from the work on Lives (
περὶ βίων γ́,
D. L. 5.42).
But his principal endeavours were directed to the supplementation and continuation of the labours of Aristotle in the domain of natural history.
This is testified not only by a number of treatises on individual subjects of zoology, of which, besides the titles, but few fragments remain, but also by his books on Stones and Metals, and his works on the History, and on the Parts of Plants, which have come down to us entire.
In politics, also, he seems to have trodden in the footsteps of Aristotle. Besides his books on the State, we find quoted various treatises on Education (ib. 42, 50), on Royalty (ib. 47, 45), on the Best State, on Political Morals, and particularly his works on the Laws, one of which, containing a recapitulation of the laws of various barbaric as well as Grecian states (
Νόμων κατὰ στοιχεῖον κδ́,
D. L. 5.44, ib. Menag.), was intended to form a
pendant to Aristotle's delineation of Politics, and must have stood in close relation to it. (Cic.
de Fin. 5.4.)
Of the books of Theophrastus on oratory and poetry, almost all that we know is, that in them also Aristotle was not passed by without reference. (Cic.
de Invent. 1.35.)
Theophrastus, without doubt, departed farther from his master in his ethical writings (
ib. 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 49, 50), as also in his metaphysical investigations respecting motion, the soul, and the Deity. (
ib. 47, 48.）
Besides the writings belonging to the above-mentioned branches of science, Theophrastus was the author of others, partly of a miscellaneous kind, as, for instance, several collections of
problems, out of which some things at least have passed into the
Problems which have come down to us under the name of Aristotle (
D. L. 5.45,
47,48; comp.
Plin. Nat. 28.6; Arist.
Probl. 33.12), and commentaries (
D. L. 5.48,
49; comp. 43), partly
dialogucs (Basil. Magn.
Epist. 167), to which probably belonged the
Ἐρωτικός (
D. L. 5.43;
Ath. 12.511,
13.562), Megacles (
D. L. 47), Callisthenes (
῍η περὶ πένθους,
D. L. 5.44; Cic.
Tusc. 3.10; Alex. Aphrod.
de Anima ii. extr.), and
Μεαρικός (
D. L. 5.44), and
letters (
D. L. 5.46,
50), partly books on mathematical sciences and their history (
ib. 42, 46, 48, 50).
Besides the two great works on botany (
περὶ φυτῶν ἱστορία, in ten books, written about Ol. 118; see Schneider,
Theoph. Opp. iv. p. 586; and
αἴτια φυσικά, in six books), we only possess some more or less ample fragments of works by Theophrastus, or extracts from them, among which the ethical characters, that is, delineations of character, and the treatise on sensuous perception and its objects (
περὶ αἰσθήσεως [καὶ αισθητῶν]) are the most considerable, the first important as a contribution to the ethical history of that time, the latter for a knowledge of the doctrines of the more ancient Greek philosophers respecting the subject indicated.
With the latter class of works we may connect the fragments
on smells (
περὶ ὀσμῶν),
on fatigue (
περὶ κόπων),
on giddiness (
περὶ ἰλίγγων),
on sweat (
περὶ ἱδρώτων),
on swooning (
περὶ λειποψυχίας),
on palsy (
περὶ παραλύσεως) and
on honey (
περὶ μέλιτος). To physics, in the narrower sense of the word, belong the still extant sections on fire (
περὶ πυρός), on the winds (
περὶ ἀνέυων), on the signs of waters, winds, and storms (
περὶ σημείων ὑδάτων καὶ πνευμάτων καὶ χειμώνων καὶ εὐδιῶν, probably out of the fourth book of the Meteorology of Theophrastus :
περὶ μεταρσίων : see Plut.
Quaest. Gr. vii.; comp. Schneider, iv. p. 719, &c.) To the zoology belong six other sections. Also the treatise on stories (
περὶ λίθων, written Ol. 116. 2, see Schneider,
l.c. iv. p. 585), and on metaphysics
τῶν μετὰ τὰ φυσικά), are only fragments, and there is no reason for assigning the latter to some other author because it is not noticed in Hermippus and Andronicus, especially as Nicolaus (Damascenus) had already mentioned it (see the scholia at the end of the book).
But throughout the text of these fragments and extracts is so corrupt that the well-known story of the fate of the books of Aristotle and Theophrastus [ARISTOTELES] might very well admit of application to them.
The same is the case with the books on colours, on indivisible lines, and on Xenophanes, Gorgias, and Melissus, which may with greater right be assigned to Theophrastus than to his master, among whose works we now find them. (Respecting the first of these books --
περὶ χρωμάτων -- see Schneider,
l.c. iv p. 864; respecting the second,
D. L. 5.42,
ib. Menag.)
Editions
Much superior to the older editions of Theophrastus (
Aldina, 1498,
Basileensis, 1541,
Camotiana, Venet. 1552, that of
Daniel Heinsius, 1613, &c.) is that by
J. G. Schneider (Theophrasti Eresii quae supersunt opera, Lips. 1818-21.5 vols.), which, however, still needs a careful revision, as the piecemeal manner in which the critical apparatus came to his hands, and his own ill health compelled the editor to append supplements and corrections, twice or thrice, to the text and commentary.
Fried. Wimmer has published a new and much improved edition of the history of plants, as the first volume of the entire works of Theophrastus. (Theophrasti opera quae supersunt omnia emendata edidit cum apparatu critic Fr. Wimmer, Tomus primus historiam plantarum continens, Vratislaviae, 1842. 8vo.)
Explanations of the History of Plants
For the explanation of the history of plants considerable contributions were made before Schneider by Bodaeus a Stapel (Amstelod. 1644, fol.) and J. Stackhouse. (
Theopher. Eres. de historia plantarum libri X.graece cum syllabo generum et specierum glossario et notis, curante Joh. Stackhouse, Oxon. 1813. 2 vols. 8vo.)
III. Theophrastus and the Aristotelic Doctrines
How far Theophrastus attached himself to the Aristotelic doctrines, how he defined them more closely, or conceived them in a different form, and what additional structures of doctrine he formed upon them, can be determined but very partially owing to the scantiness of the statements which we have, and what belongs to this subject can be merely indicated in this place.
In the first place, Theophrastus seems to have carried out still further the grammatical foundation of logic and rhetoric, since in his book on the elements of speech (
ἐν τψ̂ͅ περὶ τοῦ λόγου στοιχείῳ,
l. ἐν τῷ περὶ τῶν τοῦ λόγου στοιχείων), respecting which again others had written, he distinguished the main parts of speech from the subordinate parts, and again, direct (
κυρία λέξις) from metaphorical expressions, and treated of the affections (
πάθη) of speech (Simpl.
in Categ. 8, Basil.), and further distinguished a twofold reference of speech (
σχίσις) -- to things (
πράγματα), and to the hearers, and referred poetry and rhetoric to the latter (Ammon.
de Interpr. 53 ; Schol. in Arist. p. 108. 27).
In what he taught respecting judgment (
ἐν τῷ περὶ καταφάσεως [
καὶ ἀποφάσεως] --
de affirmationc et negatione) he had treated at length on its oneness (Alex.
in Anal. Pr. f. 128, 124; Schol. in Arist. p. 184. 24.183, b. 2 ; Both.
de Interpr. pp. 291, 327), on the different kinds of negation (Ammon.
in Arist. de Interpr. 128, b. 129, 134; Schol. in Arist. p. 121. 18), and on the difference between unconditioned and conditioned necessity (Alex.
l.c. f. 12. 6; Schol. in Arist. p. 149. 44).
In his doctrine of syllogisms he brought forward the proof for the conversion of universal affirmative judgments, differed from Aristotle here and there in the laying down and arranging the
modi of the syllogisms (Alex.
l.100.14, 72, 73, 82, 22, b, 35; Boeth.
de Syll. categ. 2.594. 5, f. 603, 615), partly in the proof of them (Alex.
l.100.39, b), partly in the doctrine of
mixture, i. e. of the influence of the modality of the premises upon the modality of the conclusion (Alex.
l.100.39, b. &100.40, 42, 56, b. 82, 64, b. 51; Joh. Ph. xxxii, b. &c.). Then in two separate works he had treated of the reduction of arguments to the syllogistic form (
ἀνηγμένων λόγων εἰς τὰ σχήματα) and on the resolution of them (
περὶ ἀναλύσεως συλλογισμῶν. Alex. 115); further, of hypothetical conclusions (Alex.
in Arist. Anal. Pr. 109, b. &100.131, b.; Joh. Phil. lx. &c. lxxv.; Boeth.
de Syll. hypoth. p. 606). For the doctrine of proof, Galenus quotes the
second Analytic of Theophrastus, in conjunction with that of Aristotle, as the best treatises on that doctrine (
de Hippocr. et Plat. Dogm. 2.2. p. 213, Lips. 253, Basil.)
In different monographies he seems to have endeavoured to expand it into a general theory of science. To this too may have belonged the proposition quoted from his
Topics, that the principia of opposites (
τῶν ἐναντίων) are themselves opposed, and cannot be deduced from one and the same higher genus. (Simpl.
in Categ. f. 5 ; Schol. p. 89. 15; comp. Alex.
in Metaph. p. 342. 30, Bonitz.) For the rest, some inconsiderable deviations from the Aristotelic definitions are quoted from the
Topica of Theophrastus. (Alex.
in Top. 5, 68, 72, 25, 31.) With this treatise, that upon ambiguous words or ideas
περὶ τοῦ ποσαχῶς,
π.
τ.
πολλαχῶς. Alex. ib. 83, 189), which, without doubt, corresponded to the book E of Aristotle's Metaphysics, seems to have been closely connected.
Theophrastus introduced his
Physics with the proof that all natural existence, being corporeal, that is composite, presupposes principia (Simpl.
in Phys. f. 1, 6, in Schneider 5.7), and before everything else, motion, as the basis of the changes common to all (ib. 5, 6; Schncid. ib. 6). Denying the subsistence of space, he seems to have been disposed, in opposition to the Aristotelic definition, to regard it as the mere arrangement and position (
τάξις and
θέσις) of bodies (Simpl.
l.100.149, b. 141 ; Schneid. p. 213f. 9, 8). Time he designated as an
accident of motion, without, as it seems, conceiving it, with Aristotle, as the numerical determination of motion. (Simpl. f. 87, b; Joh. 213. 4.)
He departed more widely from his master in his doctrine of motion, since on the one hand he extended it over all categories, and did not limit it to those laid down by Aristotle (Simpl.
in Categ. Schneid. p. 212; comp. Simpl.
in Phys. 94, 201, 202, 1. Schneid. 214. 10); and on the other hand, while he conceived it, with Aristotle, as an activity, not carrying its own end in itself (
ἀτελής), of that which only exists potentially (Simpl.
l.c. and f. 94, 1. Schneid. 11), and therefore could not allow that the activity expended itself in motion, be also recognised no activity without motion (Simpl.
in Categ. Schneid. 212. 2), and so was obliged to refer all activities of the soul to motion, the desires and affections to corporeal motion, judgment (
κρίσεις) and contemplation to spiritual motion. (Simpl.
in Phys. 225 ; Schneid. 215. 13.)
The conceivableness of a spirit entirely independent of organic activity, must therefore have appeared to him very doubtful; yet he appears to have contented himself with developing his doubts and difficulties on the point, without positively rejecting it (Themist.
in Arist. de An. 89, b. 91, b; Schneid. 215. 15). Other Peripatetics, as Dicaearchus, Arlstoxenus, and especially Straton, more unreservedly and unconditionally gave a sensualistic turn to the Aristotelic doctrine. Theophrastus seems, generally speaking, where the investigation overstepped the limits of experience, to have shown more acuteness in the development of difficulties than in the solution of them, as is especially apparent in the fragment of his
metaphysics. In a penetrating and unbiassed conception of phenomena, in acuteness of reflection and combination respecting them and within their limits, in compass and certainty of experimental knowledge, he may have stood near Aristotle, if he did not come quite up to him : the incessant endeavour of his great master to refer phenomena to their ultimate grounds, his profundity in unfolding the internal connections between the latter, and between them and phenomena, were not possessed by Theophrastus. Hence even in antiquity it was a subject of complaint that Theophrastus had not expressed himself with precision and consistency respecting the Deity, and had understood thereby at one time Heaven, at another an (enlivening) breath (
πνεῦμα, Clem. Alex.
Protrept. p. 44. b; Cic.
de Nat. Deor. 1.13) ; that he had not been able to comprehend a happiness resting merely upon virtue (
Cic. Ac. 1.10,
Tusc. 5.9), or, consequently, to hold fast by the unconditional value of morality, and, although blameless in his life, had subordinated moral requirements to the advantage at least of a friend. (A. Gell.
N. A. 1.3.23), and had admitted in prosperity the existence of an influence injurious to them. (In particular, fault was found with his expression in the Callisthenes,
vitam regit fortuna non sapientia, Cic.
Tusc. 3.10; comp. Alex. Aphrod.
de Anima, ii. extr.)
That in the definition of pleasure, likewise, he did not coincide with Aristotle, seems to be indicated by the titles of two of his writings, one of which treated of pleasure generally, the other of pleasure, as Aristotle had defined it (
D. L. 5.44,
περὶ ἡδονῆς ὡς Ἀριστοτέλης); and although, like his teacher, he preferred contemplative (theoretic), to active (practical) life (
Cic. Att. 2.16), he was at the same time disposed to set the latter free from the fetters of family life, &c. in a manner of which the former would not have approved (Hieron.
ad v. Jovinian. i, 189, Bened.) Respecting Theophrastus's treatment of botany in his two chief works, see J. G. Schneider, " de Auctoritate, Integritate, Argumento, Ordine, Methodo et Pretio Librorum, de Historia et Causis Plantarum" (
Theophr. Opp. v. p. 227-264.) Comp. R. Sprengel,
Geschichte der Botanik, vol. i. p. 52, &c.
[
CH. A. B.]
